Like many around the country, I went late last night in watching the overtime win of my Chicago Blackhawks over the Anaheim Ducks. I was fading on the couch despite some of the best hockey playing that I have seen in years but it was all worth it to see Andrew Shaw turn the game into a soccer match and headbutt the puck into the net past Frederik Andersen. Not only was it a very cool thing to watch, it introduced a wonderful legal dispute in the championship for lawyer fans like myself to feel part of the game.
Here is the legal issue. While the rule is usually directed at kicking in a puck, the rule is pretty clear. Rule 78.5 section (i) states:
Disallowed Goals – Apparent goals shall be disallowed by the Referee and the appropriate announcement made by the Public Address Announcer for the following reasons:
(i) When the puck has been directed, batted or thrown into the net by an attacking player other than with a stick.
It is hard to get around “direct, batted or thrown into the net . . . other than with a stick” no matter how hard I tried last night after looking up the rule. Sometimes you just have to hate this legal stuff.
The goal was ruled a no goal, but Shaw is still the coolest guy alive for having accomplished it.
Our hawks now come home to Chicago in what looks like a brutal series.
Great goal. Completely illegal play, but still a great goal nevertheless.
The NHL Network had a roundtable discussion this evening w/ some soccer people. Doing that was thinking outside the box, or crease, as it were.
Go Hawks!
I hear the Chicago Fire want to offer Shaw a contract. All players act as if their shots that go into the goal are ‘good.’ It’s part of the game to convince the refs. Shaw is always a hard worker, but Kruger was the hero.
Hero player apparently doesn’t know all the rules. He jumped to hit it with his head By his celebratory skate-away, he thought it was a goal.
Interesting how the world is full of butt-heads and no one says much about it, but let one hockey player head-butt the puck into the net and everyone is talking about it. It’s like what happens when you put the batteries in backwards in the Pink bunny on TV: He keeps on coming, and coming, and . . .
From the second camera angle, it’s not so obvious that Shaw “directed” it. It would’ve been great if it had counted. Great try – they must still be laughing. But the Hawks steal one in Anaheim anyway!
You are correct, Isaac, that a puck that deflects off a player and into the net, regardless of where it hits the player, is a goal if the player off whom the puck deflected did not actively direct it into the net. Teemu Selanne, notably, scored a goal when another player’s shot deflected in off Selanne’s head.
The height of the puck is relevant only when a player scores a goal by hitting the puck in midair with his stick into the goal. If the stick makes contact with the puck above the goal’s crossbar (4 feet high), then the goal came off a “high stick” and does not count.
Regardless, it was a fantastic move, albeit one doomed to fail. I have never seen anything like it in hockey before.
Pro football allows you to inflate your own balls and pro hockey allow you to head butt a puck past a goalee to win the game. In golf the players walk around in fruit loop clothing and tee off but never pee off such that an announcer would quibble with the score. If they would just move the players around we could have Brad whatshis name in golf, Arnold Palmer in football and Warren Buffet in baseball. Guide dogs for each sport instead of refs or umpires.
I know that teams have doctors assigned to the sidelines for player injuries, maybe it is time for lawyers to be assigned to the sidelines to help interpret the rules for the teams on the spot.
Fell asleep watching. Two great teams. Hockey has some of the best officiating in major sports and it is noteworthy since the game is so fast. I think hockey needs to tap into black kids as a new fan source. When I was a juvenile probation officer I would take my probationers to games as reward for good school attendance. The short lived KC Scouts NHL team would give me tickets. I had a mostly black geographic area I worked and most of the kids I supervised were black. These kids LOVED hockey. They would pepper me w/ questions during the game and were more entranced than w/ baseball or basketball. The Royals and KC Kings were also generous in giving me tickets. The Chiefs would not give away one ticket, and they SUCKED @ the time.
It’s a no goal, has always been a no goal, and will never be a goal. There’s an obvious reason for limiting goals to coming off of sticks. However, I believe that if the goal had deflected off of the player’s head, as with a skate, it would have been a goal. There might be something about how high the puck is off of the ice as well.